is badly weened... >> narrator: an economy in collapse. >>enreed and irresponsibility on the part of some... >> narrator: he kept saying the problems were big enough, and his win historic enough, that everyone in washington would join together to fix the country. >> he spoke of no less than remaking america...re >> he got to washington and he became president, i think, still clinging to this view that the polarization in american politics could be overcome. >> this is the biggest inaugural of all time... >> you're going to be aring a lot of superlatives today, but i think it is almost impossible to be too hyperbolic... >> narrator: to the new president, it seemed like an historic opportunity. >> president obama did not have a full sense of what washington was going to be like for him. b he had not been in the middle of these kind of down and dirty fights, the ugly reality of governing in washington today. >> the president walked into the presidency with an expectation that he would be able to reach across the aisle, that republicans and de